So Brian Michael Bendis is leaving Marvel for DC. This is pretty shocking news in itself, considering Bendis has been with Marvel for close to seventeen years now and has written almost all of their major characters and even created some new characters that have become very popular. So while we might speculate what he’s going to write at DC, I’d also like to think about who might take over the Marvel books he’s writing now.

Jessica Jones

This one is both hard and easy — hard because Jessica Jones is a character that Bendis himself created and obviously cares about a lot (Marvel apparently held back on doing a Jessica Jones book until Bendis had enough free time to write it himself). But it’s also easy in that there is a very obvious choice on who can replace Bendis: Kelly Thompson, who is already writing a book about a snarky female private detective (Hawkeye).

Other writers who could possibly write Jessica Jones: Becky Cloonan (recent writer for Punisher and Southern Cross), Alex de Campi (writer for No Mercy and Mayday), and Kathryn Immonen (writer for Original S.I.N. and the Lady Sif Journey Into Mystery).

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Spider-Man

This is another hard one, because Bendis not only created the Miles Morales Spider-Man, but also has been continually writing him for the past six years. But there is a good choice out there and that choice is: Brandon Thomas. “Who?” I hear you cry. Well, he currently writes for Image, has written a bunch of stuff previously for Marvel, and also wrote the awesome book The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury.

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Other writers who could possibly write Spider-Man: David Walker (writer of the recently ended Power Man & Iron Fist and current writer of Luke Cage), Greg Pak (writer of Incredible Hulk), John Semper Jr (current writer for Cyborg and previously was a writer/story-editor for Spider-Man: The Animated Series).

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The Defenders

You might think that this was another hard decision — after all, Bendis is really good at writing street-level characters and here are four of them (one of whom he created, another of whom he had a long run with). But no, I have the perfect writer in mind — someone who not only has experience writing for Power Man and Iron Fist already, but excels at writing complex plots with lots of power dynamics and morally gray characters: Christopher Priest.

Other writers who could possibly write Defenders: I don’t care, because I’m imagining a Defenders book by Christopher Priest and it would be the most awesome thing ever. Seriously, Marvel, offer this book to him.

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Invincible Iron Man

This book is actually the easiest to give to someone else — Bendis hasn’t actually been writing it for very long and while he did create a new character to center the book around (Riri Williams/Ironheart), the book is clearly bringing back Tony Stark, so he’s going to be the main character again pretty soon.

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There isn’t really a single writer I would love to see writing this, aside from any really good writer. This is another book I think Christopher Priest would do well writing; Brandon Montclare has shown he can write amazingly outlandish science fiction with Rocket Girl; Antony Johnston is great with both science fiction (The Fuse) and spy fiction (Codename Baboushka); Jen van Meter writes great family drama (Hopeless Savages) and has written a bunch for Marvel. Honestly, though, I wish Marvel would just pick someone out of left field, someone completely bizarre to write and draw this — like Kyle Starks, who did Sexcastle and Rock Candy Mountain, or Andrew MacLean, who does Head Lopper.